More chaos, or conciliation in Iran?

Two events today may determine whether a week of post-election turmoil in Iran ends in confrontation or conciliation. If it had any virtue at all, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's sermon at Friday prayers in Tehran at least clarified the choices. Deliberately or not, his words made plain this is a fateful moment for the Islamic republic.
The first event is a planned demonstration in Tehran by supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi. Their numbers have been swollen by ordinary Iranians fed up with incompetent and corrupt governance. Up to 1 million people have taken part in previous protests and may do so again tomorrow. Khamenei was quite explicit in his address about demonstrations in Tehran and other cities. They must cease immediately, he said. His remarks were interpreted as a threat of greater violence by the state. Until now, the uniformed security forces, as distinct from the Basij militia, have not tried to halt the protests, only to control them. The demonstrators have now been put on notice that this forbearance is ending. The chances of bloodshed on a scale not yet seen have increased dramatically as a result of the supreme leader's unbending stance.
Khamenei has backed himself into a corner. The credibility of the regime now demands that his order to the protesters to desist be obeyed. If the state cannot halt the unrest, the debilitating crisis of legitimacy which has engulfed it since the election may become terminal.
For his part, Mousavi is under intense pressure to appeal to his supporters to stay away, as he has done before. He surely has no wish to be blamed for the spilling of more innocent blood. Nor does he wish to join other opposition leaders under arrest, which the supreme leader implied might happen if another "illegal gathering" went ahead.
Tomorrow's second key event offers a possible way out for both sides. Mousavi and the two other aggrieved presidential candidates, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezaie, are to meet the guardian council, which reports directly to Khamenei. Their complaints about fraud, and the partial recount of ballots ordered last week, are on the agenda. But the true focus of the discussion may be broader: namely, what Mousavi and leading opposition figures might be prepared to accept in return for ending their campaign of dissent.
If they continue to insist on an election rerun, the talks could quickly hit a brick wall. But if the price of conciliation is a regime commitment to advance some of the reformists' priorities, including a review of economic policy, accelerated privatisation, a corruption crackdown, and greater personal and media freedoms, there may be room for negotiation. Understandings about Ahmadinejad's future may also feature.
Powerful establishment figures such as the expediency council chief, Hashemi Rafsanjani, Speaker Ali Larijani, and the former reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, are fiercely critical of Ahmadinejad and, to a lesser degree, Khamenei. But, like Mousavi himself, they have no interest in bringing down a system they helped build and which has served them well.
When Khamenei argued that the problem was not an existential one for the Islamic system, he may have been tacitly hinting at this sort of patched-up deal. "Differences of opinion do exist between officials, which is natural. But it does not mean there is a rift in the ­system," he said.
The impulse to resolve the dispute will be strengthened, meanwhile, by fear of the alternative – damaging and possibly uncontainable confrontation.
It looks like it could be a big day.

Source: Simon Tisdall

Guardian.co.uk

Hatred, chaos and savage beatings in Tehran

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- He was surrounded and pleading for them to stop but six men with clubs, batons and metal rods kept battering a young Iranian man with ruthless force. The swing that keeps replaying in my head was the black baton that smashed the man in the skull behind his left ear.
Seconds earlier the man had dared to stand up to the baton wielding men because they had shoved a 14-year-old girl. For his chivalry he got one of the most savage beatings I have ever seen at the hands of four Iranian riot policemen and members of the Baseej, Iran's plain clothed volunteer militia.
"To hell with Iran," he said as he sat beaten and battered along the sidewalk. "This is not my government. This is not my country."
A grown man who watched the beating burst into tears.
This was a glimpse of the ugly aftermath of Iran's presidential elections, which sparked outrage among supporters of candidate Mir Hossein Moussavi.
Moussavi's backers are calling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's landslide victory a sham. They're demanding the vote be annulled. The government's response has been a ruthless and violent crackdown.
For eight chaotic hours I saw the two sides clash throughout the streets of Tehran. These were Iranians versus Iranians, but the two sides were worlds apart in appearance, ideology and brute force.

Moussavi's supporters were mostly young 20-something men and women. They were college students, young professionals with degrees demanding social freedom, a better way of life, and better relations with the West.
Two teenage girls carrying bricks had French manicured fingernails and designer sunglasses. The protesters threw objects, burned trash bins, honked their horns and chanted "death to the dictator!"
They were loud, until they heard the roar of the motorcycles.
The motorcycles belonged to two groups of Ahmadinejad supporters: Iran's riot police and the Baseej.
The riot police looked like modern gladiators, muscular and menacing with camouflaged uniforms, black boots, black bulletproof vests and black shielded helmets. They rode in pairs. One drove while the other wielded a club or a baton. They swarmed crowds of rowdy protesters in packs of about 20, beating anyone who got in their way.
On several occasions I saw female Moussavi supporters plead with their male counterparts not to run away. But they almost always did. They were clearly intimidated by the brutal show of force.
The Baseejis were just as ruthless. Those who didn't ride on motorcycles walked the streets in large packs carrying clubs. They didn't wear uniforms, so they could easily ambush protesters. They beat one protester so badly that he collapsed in the middle of an intersection and trembled uncontrollably. I saw one battered young man crawl into the lobby of an apartment building, curl up under the stairwell and sob. He had welts on his forehead and bruises up and down his arms.
"They hit me with everything," he said as he gasped for air. "They hit with clubs. They hit me with chains."
When the two sides weren't throwing objects at one another, they were hurling insults. I heard and felt the hatred on both sides.
During a Saturday afternoon news conference Ahmadinejad compared the violent crackdown against the protesters to a citation after a traffic ticket.
A few hours later thousands gathered in midtown Tehran to hear Ahmadinejad deliver a victory speech. The re-elected president said the elections belonged to Iran's people.

Never since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 have Iran's people appeared this divided.

Source: CNN